Andrew Starling - a brief biography

UK Software Engineer and Writer

I'm never quite sure what to write on on those tedious immigration forms. Am I a programmer, a developer, a database engineer, or a software engineer? Happiy, nobody seems to care, including me.

Once upon a time I was a web editor, and before that a magazine editor. I've worked for the UK Government's Small Business Service, and as a usability advisor for the Cabinet Office committee on The Quality Framework for UK Government Website Design.

I did some of the original coding for the BFI screenonline site. And under the pseudonym of Paige Turner (yes, she was beautiful) for two years I was the JavaScript Weenie on the internet.com site, Web Developer's Journal. So I'm very familiar with JavaScript, and also strangely familiar with marriage proposals from male geeks.

I've written dozens of articles for internet.com, most of them listed here. I was also technology editor of the UK's original Internet Magazine, for EMAP.

That's enough work nonsense. Actually far too much, but like anybody else on this planet I have to make it look like my skills are essential for mankind's existence. Or failing that, are worth paying for.

On the personal side, when I have the time I like to write short stories and novels with a satirical angle. Recently I wrote Dead Pan and Joe Progress about the god Pan returning to Earth and discovering that a company has patented his human-goat combination of genes, and he's now their property. The download figures for my free Internet novels have gone over 100,000, so I should stop counting.

I like to travel too. Back in my twenties I drove a truck overland from Johannesburg to London, which took six months and was quite exciting. And later I spent nine months travelling by bus, train and ferry from Bangkok to Sydney via Sumatra, Flores and Timor.

My Web sites are Foxglove.co.uk and Tinhat.com. Foxglove (this site) is a satirical site and was a Mirror newspaper site of the day. It's also home to most of my fiction writing. Tinhat started out as a site about Internet security but doesn't have a clear direction right now. Maybe one will appear.

If you'd like to contact me, my email address is ajs@foxglove.co.uk. This address changes periodically, just to keep spammers on their toes.